Flog a Pro: would you pay to turn the first page of this bestseller?

Trained by reading hundreds of submissions, editors and agents often make their read/not-read decision on the first page. In a customarily formatted book manuscript with chapters starting about 1/3 of the way down the page (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, 12-point type), there are 16 or 17 lines on the first page online or at the bookstore.

Here’s the question:

Would you pay good money to read the rest of the chapter? With 50 chapters in a book that costs $15, each chapter would be “worth” 30 cents.

So, before you read the excerpt, take 30 cents from your pocket or purse. When you’re done, decide what to do with those three dimes or the quarter and a nickel. It’s not much, but think of paying 30 cents for the rest of the chapter every time you sample a book’s first page. In a sense, time is money for a literary agent working her way through a raft of submissions, and she is spending that resource whenever she turns a page.

Please judge by storytelling quality, not by genre or content—some reject an opening page immediately because of genre, but that’s not a good enough reason when the point is to analyze for storytelling strength.

This novel was number one on the New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller list for January 21, 2018. How strong is the opening page—would this narrative, all on its own, have hooked an agent if it came in from an unpublished writer? Following are what would be the first 17 manuscript lines of the first chapter.

Her husband’s almost home. He’ll catch her this time.

There isn’t a scrap of curtain, not a blade of blind, in number 212— the rust-red townhome that once housed the newlywed Motts, until recently, until they un-wed. I never met either Mott, but occasionally I check in online: his LinkedIn profile, her Facebook page. Their wedding registry lives on at Macy’s. I could still buy them flatware.

As I was saying: not even a window dressing. So number 212 gazes blankly across the street, ruddy and raw, and I gaze right back, watching the mistress of the manor lead her contractor into the guest bedroom. What is it about that house? It’s where love goes to die.

She’s lovely, a genuine redhead, with grass-green eyes and an archipelago of tiny moles trailing across her back. Much prettier than her husband, a Dr. John Miller, psychotherapist— yes, he offers couples counseling— and one of 436,000 John Millers online. This particular specimen works near Gramercy Park and does not accept insurance. According to the deed of sale, he paid $ 3.6 million for his house. Business must be good.

I know both more and less about the wife. Not much of a homemaker, clearly; the Millers moved in eight weeks ago, yet still those windows are bare, tsk-tsk. She practices yoga three times a week, tripping down the steps with her magic-carpet mat rolled beneath one arm, legs shrink-wrapped in Lululemon. And she must volunteer someplace— she leaves the house a little (snip)

This is Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn. Was this opening page compelling?

Side note: number two on the list was Origin by Dan Brown. I was tempted to look at that one because of his, er, qualities as a writer, but that felt too much like shooting fish in a barrel.

My vote: Yes.

This book received an average of 4.3 stars out of 5 on Amazon. For me, this story begins with a strong hook in that first paragraph: will she be caught and who is she are good story questions. Yet that wasn’t what earned the page-turn. Through voice and the narrator’s view of what’s going on and her knowledge about the woman across the street, the real mystery in this opening is the narrator. Who is she? Why is she watching? Why does she know so much? Is she just a voyeur? In other words, what’s her story?

For me, this is an example of how voice and writing can do so much to generate compelling energy and tension in an opening page. I ended up wanting to know what happens next to two characters—the redhead across the street and the woman in the window. Yes, nothing has gone wrong for the woman in the window . . . yet. I found I wanted to know what that would be and how she would handle it. Oh, and would the homecoming husband catch the philandering wife?

But I will pick a nit or two. For me, there could have been considerably greater clarity in the scene-setting if a particular descriptive element (shown here in red) was moved to this place earlier in the narrative:

. . . the rust-red townhome across the street that once housed the newlywed Motts . . .

In this position, the description now shows me that the narrator is doing her observing from a position across the street from the townhome, something that isn’t completely clear at first.

Also, the redhead going into a bedroom with a contractor is not necessarily the beginning of an assignation because she could simply be working with him on decoration or remodeling of her new home. This is another clarity issue for me, one I see frequently when an author doesn’t quite get enough on the page because there’s so much in her mind. For example, in this case:

. . . watching the mistress of the manor take her contractor’s hand and lead himher contractor into the guest bedroom.

Something like that would have easily made clear what the redhead and her contractor were up to, and this would have increased the consequences of her husband’s imminent arrival, and thus the tension on this first page. Without that clarity, her observations about the house being a place love goes to die could be a non sequitur. Your thoughts?

You’re invited to a flogging—your own You see the insights fresh eyes bring to the performance of bestseller first pages, so why not do the same with the opening of your WIP? Submit your prologue/first chapter to my blog, Flogging the Quill and I’ll give you my thoughts and even a little line editing if I see a need. And the readers of FtQ are good at offering constructive notes, too. Hope to see you there. To submit, email your first chapter or prologue (or both) as an attachment to me, and let me know if it’s okay to use your first page and to post the complete chapter.

Wish you could buy this author a cup of joe?

Ray Rhamey is the author of four novels and one writing craft book, Mastering the Craft of Compelling Storytelling. He's also an editor of book-length fiction and designs book covers and interiors for Indie authors and small presses. His website, crrreative.com, offers an a la carte menu of creative services for writers and publishers. Learn more about Ray's books at rayrhamey.com.

Comments

Ray, I agree entirely with two of your comments (the changes made for clarity) but disagree with the third, which was not a comment but an assumption: that the watcher across the street is “her.” Where is that specified? It is not–at least, not in this excerpt. I assumed at the outset that the watcher was a man, and I still envision him as a creepy voyeur with little more to do than watch through the window and indulge in online stalking . I wouldn’t want him as a neighbor across my street. He praises the wife’s appearance while disparaging the husband. Maybe this is the narrator’s story more than the couple’s story?
This opening got my vote because of the efficiency with which the three characters are introduced, the descriptive language (e.g., repetition of “red”), the discrepancy between Mott and Miller, which suggests that the “specimen” (great word, showing the narrator’s scorn for him) leads a double life, and the atmosphere of threat and weirdness. I want to know what happens next.

I read to about halfway through the excerpt thinking I’d be giving it a yes – the writer offers effective description with some nice touches (a blade of blind; number two gazes blankly across the street, ruddy and raw) while staying economical with words.

My yes turned to a no because, like Anna, I assumed the narrator was male and making gratuitous and unsavoury comments about the woman he was spying on. I disliked the reference to ‘the wife’ as if she was not an individual in her own right; the comment about shrink-wrapped legs; the comments about her failure to hang curtains (so what?) I disliked this enough to decide I really didn’t want to read on – the setup was not interesting enough to counteract this narrator’s ”ew” factor. In fact the same thing applies now I know the narrator is female!

The writing is excellent. But this observation–“What is it about that house? It’s where love goes to die”–made me want to turn the page. I know that things aren’t always as they seem so my curiosity is piqued. The narrator also has an understated humor that I like. Instead of saying the Motts were divorced, she says, “unwed.” She refers to the psychotherapist as “this particular specimen” and his wife “Not much of a homemaker, clearly; the Millers moved in eight weeks ago, yet still those windows are bare, tsk-tsk.” I was smiling the whole time I read the excerpt. It reminded me of Rear Window (the movie).

I thought it was great as is. I liked that it held back the detail of the house being across the street for a few lines and being deliberately vague about what the contractor was doing in her bedroom. I also loved the judgmental tone. I wanted to know if the narrator was unreliable. I was hooked, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that.

Though I was intrigued by the obsessive neighbor and the idea had potential, I think this opening suffered from a lack of editing. It could have been more compelling were it written tighter. There were just a few sloppy things that made me think I’d be irritated for the entire book.

For instance, I don’t think we need any of this:

“As I was saying: not even a window dressing. So number 212 gazes blankly across the street, ruddy and raw, and I gaze right back, watching the mistress of the manor lead her contractor into the guest bedroom.”

The “As I was saying” bit is completely unnecessary–it was just the last paragraph. We don’t need to be reminded, do we? And if she’s going to get caught this time, we know this is an affair. The contractor can come into it a little later while we get on with why we should care about this mystery couple (which, honestly, I don’t–I want to know more about the narrator). Leading him to the bedroom is unnecessarily leading the reader to why she’s going to get in trouble. The reader isn’t dumb. She’ll figure it out.

Things I loved:

“Their wedding registry lives on at Macy’s. I could still buy them flatware.” –> Shows us the narrator is a wee bit too interested in/obsessed with this couple.

“What is it about that house? It’s where love goes to die.” –> Shows us the narrator has lived there a while and this isn’t the first couple he/she has been spying on.

“Not much of a homemaker, clearly; the Millers moved in eight weeks ago, yet still those windows are bare, tsk-tsk.” –> This is just funny. :) It gives you an idea of the type of person the narrator is, the type of humor he/she enjoys.

Honestly, I’d probably give it another page, but if the narrative didn’t tighten up slightly, I would probably put it down. To me the story is not about the couple, it’s about the narrator.

I did like the line about
“It’s where love goes to die.”
Maybe I would have made that the opening line.

And will he catch her? – well, when did a relationship like that ever end well? It’s too cliched to be interesting.

And talking of cliches – please spare us the one about green eyes. Why do so many authors describe anyone they want us to know is good-looking as having green eyes??!! At least she doesn’t also have high cheekbones …

I also missed the point about Motts and Millers – why the distracting backstory in the first paragraph?

On the bright side, at least the title is “The Woman in the Window” not “The Girl in the Window”…

I would have turned the page, but after reading the first chapter, put the book back on the shelf. Nothing in the first chapter provoked my interest in the _narrator_. She’s a downer, a voyeur without a life (she tells us that) who gets her kicks spying on her neighbors. I don’t like her, I don’t see any reason to empathize with her.

And there’s no indication that the story is about the Millers across the street, that something more will happen to them, something more interesting than the wife being caught. And there’s no indication that something is about to happen to the narrator either.

Some of the details in the first chapter distracted me. Saying it’s a Nikon camera is good, it says she’s interested in photography, not just a cell phone selfie snapper. But that it’s a Nikon D5500 with a non-Nikon lens (of unspecified focal length) is useless detail. We aren’t even given a hint as to what about the narrator caused her to choose that camera, and that lens. If the rest of the book is packed with such apparently irrelevant details, yuck.

It felt like bait-and-switch: a well-crafted first page designed to hook, followed by an unrelated story.

Though I agree with others, the writing is good – I’m there in the scene – but I vote no because of the snarky voice. I like a little more humor with my snark, or at least a feeling that the viewer has some empathy for human foibles. I’m with David, I wouldn’t want to read an entire book with this creepy narrator.

Which may be the reason we often hear not to begin the book in a voice other than your protagonist’s – you take the chance of confusing your reader. Who am I to identify with?

I am intrigued by the number of commenters who stop reading because they don’t like the narrator. Are we no longer willing to explore reprehensible characters in fiction, uncomfortable though that experience may be? What does that say about us?

For me, it says that I read fiction for enjoyment. I don’t necessarily enjoy “reprehensible” characters, and especially not being inside their heads. It can be done well enough to draw me in, of course, but it’s a rarity in my experience.

In this case, I didn’t think the narrator was “reprehensible” so much as boring (despite, as other commenters have noted, some truly excellent turns of phrase), which is a deal-breaker for me.

Perhaps it says that many of us are reluctant to spend time with people, even fictional ones, that we don’t like.

It’s not whether they are reprehensible, though: the MCU’s Loki, as portrayed by Tom Hiddleston, is pretty reprehensible, at least at the beginning of his character arc– his ambitions include fratricide, world conquest, and genocide, after all. But he’s fun to be around, if you aren’t one of his victims, and has some admirable qualities.

The woman here, though, isn’t fun to be around, and as far as I’ve read has no admirable qualities.

By far. BY FAAAAARRR the best opening since you started this column. I’m not even a romance/thriller guy but this was wonderfully built, in the ways you identified Ray. It was thick- I’m wondering what I’ll see across the street, but picking up big clues about the narrator, you nailed it and that’s just wonderful writing.

My vote was a measured “yes,” with the caveat that I’d only give it a few more pages. I, too, thought the narrator was male – and from the book’s title, I would have assumed the “woman in the window” was the redhead being surveilled, not the narrator.

Like several other commenters, I was both pleased and relieved to see more artful writing than we’ve usually seen in this series, although the author keeps teetering on the edge of overwriting.

The narrator does come off as creepy, which is a big part of why I’d only give this a few more pages before giving the book flying lessons. But if some redeeming and/or intriguing revelation is forthcoming, I’d stick with this one, which makes it a rarity among the books you’ve profiled in recent years.

The unidentified narrator’s tone is snarky, like a bored cop on surveillance, but the obsession over window treatments suggests something much quirkier, like a Peeping Tom. The consensus is that s:he’s a nosy neighbor, but the snide undertone when reporting the price of the house feels inconsistent with that – the high value should be a bit of happy news, because it reflects on the value of all the property in the neighborhood. Perhaps this inconsistency will be explained out later, but on the first page the author has to work with the readers’ preconceptions about a situation as much as s:he has to challenge them to follow along.

Worst to me, having got my appetite whetted about what the husband would catch his wife doing when he got home, we find out that she’s simply leading the contractor around the house. Normally this is a cause for joy, since it means the remodeling is finally getting off the ground. Maybe the husband is coming home early expressly to join in the walk through. None of this seems to occur to our oh-so alert narrator. I’m irritated with hir already.

Actually, she’s leading him into a bedroom, not just around the house. That, plus the observer’s remarks, led me to think that this was there for sex. Indeed, they do begin undressing in the pages that follow.

I like the writing, and for that reason would give this a few more pages. I found using a house with a history (“where love goes to die”) an intriguing way to introduce both the narrator and the wife having an affair. This opening definitely raised questions (for me), especially, who are these people?

I voted no because I had to go back and re-read the first two paragraphs to grasp what was going on exactly. And for this line: with grass-green eyes and an archipelago of tiny moles trailing across her back. It sounded like something a male writer would say who’s trying too hard. Sure enough, I guessed it was a male writer.